A: No. Any time a goal is played, it provides a chance for someone to win with those conditions. No matter how briefly that Goal is in play, it counts, and if someone meets the conditions in that instant, they win.
Archives
Q: If a Goal requires a Keeper and Attaching Creeper, must it be attached to the Keeper on the Goal, or could it be attached to any of my Keepers?
… – For example: The Spock’s Beard Goal requires Spock and the Mirror Universe. If I had Spock, but the Mirror Universe is attached to Uhura, do I still win? Or does it have to be attached to Spock in order to win with that goal?
A: No, the Creeper does not have to be attached to the Keeper it goes with for the Goal.
This is sort of the corollary to this question: If my Attaching Creepers are not attached to the Keepers I need to win…
Q: Does Double Agenda include the playing of a second Goal as part of it’s effect?
…Double Agenda says “A second Goal can now be played…” The person I was playing with thought this meant they automatically got to put a second Goal down as part of the Double Agenda play.
A: Double Agenda allows there to be two Goals at the same time, but playing a second Goal (or even first if you’re really early in the game!) still uses up one of your plays for your turn.
Q: In Fluxx: the Board Game, one can complete a Goal from the stack or one’s hand. Does it count as a play to complete a Goal from one’s hand?
…I understand that it uses up a play to put the card on the stack to make it available for ANYONE to complete, but what if I’m just gaining it directly from my hand without playing it to the stack at all?
A: There really isn’t technically any difference between completing a Goal “from your hand” vs. “from the stack”. When you use a Goal “from your hand” it just means that YOU are the “anyone” who’s completing the Goal you just played. The only difference is that you didn’t put it into play with any time for anyone ELSE to win it except you. You still have to put it into play (i.e. play it) for it to be available for you to claim.
Basically, it always takes a play to use any card from your hand for anything.
We simply concluded that one doesn’t actually need to go through the motions of putting the Goal on the stack, just to pick it right back up it up again and put it in front of you. That said, some people do sort of symbolically wave the Goal towards the stack before claiming it.
Q: If Dead Friends and Zombies Ain’t So Bad are both in effect, can I win with Goals requiring Friends?
See this answer as a video!
Ain’t So Bad
A: One could argue that your Zombified Friends are still Friends,
since Zombies Ain’t So Bad.
–Or–
One could argue that once your Friends are Zombified, it’s simply impossible to win with ANY Goal requiring Friends, even if Zombies Ain’t So Bad, since, really, they may not be so bad, but they’re not your friends anymore, they’re zombies. How many people describe their friends as “not so bad”? That’s hardly enthusiastic, you know?
So let’s ask ourselves how many of their Friend-attributes they maintain in Zombified form, such that they would meet the various Goals in a thematic sense:
• Zombie Food: are Zombified Friends Zombie Food?
Not really. Zombies don’t eat each other.
• Barricade the Windows: Could my Zombified Friends help me Barricade the Windows?
Maybe. Depends how hard it is to do that task. It would probably be hard.
• Getaway Driver: Can my Zombified Friends drive a car?
We’re gonna go with a big “no” on that one. Seriously doubtful.
and finally…
• We’re All All Right: Are my Zombified Friends “All Right”?
I don’t care how “not so bad” Zombies are, my Zombified Friends are definitely NOT “all right”.
TLDR:
The short answer from Andy himself is the second answer: if Dead Friends is in play, you can’t win with ANY Goal requiring Friends, because they’re not Friends any more, they’re zombies, even if they’re really nice Zombies. Sorry.
Q: When using a card that moves when the Goal is changed, what happens when you add a second Goal for Double Agenda? What about when it goes away?
A: For cards like the Radioactive Potato or Larry the Zombie, we would rule that the Goal, as a set, has been changed if you:
• Go from zero Goals to one
• Change one Goal out for another
• Go from one Goal to two
• Change one of the two Goals
• Go from two Goals to one
• Go from one goal to zero
All of these things would be considered a change in the Goal. The cards that could make that last situation happen may not be in Zombie Fluxx or Fluxx 4.0, but there is at least one card out there that can make that happen.
Q: What happens if a Goal and UnGoal are met at the same time?
… We were playing Cthulhu Fluxx, and what complicates things is that my wife had the Secret Cultist, so she would win if the UnGoal overrides the Goal, but my son would have won with the Goal if that overrides the UnGoal. [Note from Looney Labs, in Cthulhu Fluxx, a simultaneous Goal and UnGoal could arise from either Double Agenda or The Stars Are Right. Zombie Fluxx and Martian Fluxx could also generate this condition since they both have Double Agenda and an UnGoal. Zombie Fluxx also has the Zombie Boss Rule which can make a player win in the case of the UnGoal being met.]
A: Well, this IS a doozy. Andy and I had to think this through carefully.
But in the end, the answer seems obvious: on the rule sheet itself, at end of the first page in “Notes” is the ruling for ties:
“The game doesn’t end until there is a clear winner. If for some reason two of more players meet the winning conditions simultaneously, the game continues until a single winner emerges.”
So, for your situation, the answer is actually fairly simple: there were two players meeting winning conditions simultaneously, so keep playing until a clear winner emerges. Note that the “clear winner” need not be one of the two originally tied. It could happen that someone else manages to break the tie and win instead of either one of them.
What got a little tricky for us, is that we also wanted to rule in cases where the Cultist/Secret Cultist/Zombie Boss wasn’t invoked, which is to say when there is one player winning, but the conditions for “all players losing” is also met. How could that be? Would we rule that there is only one player winning? Or would we rule that there is “no clear winner”, since that player should simultaneously be both winning and losing?
We went with the latter: If a Goal and UnGoal are met simultaneously, then, even if there is not an actual player that can claim victory in the case of the UnGoal conditions, having the UnGoal met is like having the “forces of evil” be the winner. So if a player meets the winning condition, they are actually tied with “the forces of evil” , thus play would continue until a clear winner emerges.
In a way, all that the Cultist/Secret Cultist/Zombie Boss does is make an actual player represent those forces of evil, thereby claiming that victory.
Q: What happens to the two Goals when Double Agenda is trashed?
A: Whoever caused it to go away gets to choose which Goal stays in play, and which gets trashed.
Q: If a Goal requires something + either of two Creepers. Can I win if I have both Creepers?
A: Our call would be that you could win if you have both, since both are mentioned on the same Goal, and the rule regarding winning with Creepers is that it’s possible if the Goal specifically requires that Creeper. Another way to think of it is that it’s not an “exclusive or” (XOR) it is an “inclusive or” (and/or). An exclusive or would mean one or the other, but not both, whereas an inclusive or means one or the other or both.
This is true for any Goal which requires any subset of a group of Creepers. If the Creeper is shown on the Goal, it will not prevent the win, but if the person in question has any Creepers NOT shown on the Goal they’re trying to win with, then those excess unrelated Creepers will prevent the win.
It would be difficult to find all of them to list them here, but we will tag various applicable Goals as they are brought to our attention.
Terrifying Inspiration (Cthulhu Fluxx)
Q Who (Star Trek TNG Fluxx)
Q: If I play a bunch of Goals in succession, and don’t notice that I won and kept playing Goals, do I still get to win?
After the fact, the other players noticed and pointed out that I “could have won” if I’d noticed, but since I kept on playing, we all decided that I’d missed my opportunity. Should I actually have won?
A: We would rule that you won. In Fluxx it is not required that you notice and claim victory. The conditions existed such that there was a winner. Everyone knows it happened; no-one is actually contesting that the win conditions WERE in fact met.
Just because it took a little while for the winner to realize, does not negate that fact: there is a winner and the game is over.
Now, having realized it belatedly, I’d say that if the consensus between ALL the players (including the winning player) is to keep playing anyhow, and ignore that, that’s up to them. But officially, were it a tournament, for example, we’d count that as a win.
Now, if the conditions happened so long ago in the game that people can’t quite recall what happened, and the win is uncertain, that’s another case. Then I’d say you’d have to keep playing. I guess if they’d never pointed it out to you, then the win conditions would have faded into obscurity. But I’d call deliberate non-acknowledgement of someone else’s win cheating.
Q: If the Goal doesn’t say “and no zombies” can I win even if I have zombies?
A: The Creepers in Zombie Fluxx work a little differently than other Creepers. Most other Creepers specify on them that you can’t win if you have them, but Zombies do not say this – instead, in Zombie Fluxx, it is the Goal which will indicate whether zombies will prevent your win.
If the Goal doesn’t say that you can’t have zombies, then it’s okay if you have zombies.
Q: What do we do with the Goal and UnGoal when The Stars Are Right is taken out of play?
How do we decide which one to keep?
A: The situation is just like resolving the two Goals that result from Double Agenda: whoever got rid of the Rule allowing the double Goal/Ungoal situation gets to decide which to keep, and which to toss.
UNLESS Cosmic Agenda is also in play (which forces you to play UnGoals). In that case, you should be forced to keep the UnGoal in play, and trash the Goal, because this is analagous to having to play the UnGoal.
Q: If I have specific Creepers required for a Goal, but I also have other Creepers, can I still win with that goal?
A: In the vast majority of cases, you cannot win if you have Creepers not specifically required by the goal.
Exceptions:
• Do your extraneous Creepers say that they keep you from winning? (Almost all Creepers do, but if they don’t then go for it.)
• Is there a Rule in play that lets you win even if you have Creepers? (There are a couple of these, depending on which versions you have.)
• In Batman Fluxx, if the Goal requires a Villain, Villains don’t prevent you from winning. However, if the Goal does NOT require a Villain, then Villains ANYWHERE prevent you from winning.
• In Nature Fluxx (aka EcoFluxx) all Creepers prevent everyone from winning, regardless of who has them.
See also: The… Goal requires a Keeper and either of two Creepers…
Q: To change the Goal, do I just stack a new Goal on top of the old one?
A: As the rule sheet states in the section describing the different types of cards:
“To play a Goal, place it face up in the middle of the table, discarding the previous Goal, if any.”
You’re not supposed to just stack up the Goals on the table. The old ones should always go in the discard. That said, it happens quite frequently that people play a little “lazy” and stack them for a couple of turns, and then suddenly someone remembers that those should be in the discard, and cleans it all up.
There are very few cards in Fluxx that allow or require you to pull a Goal out of the trash or for which the exact order of discard matters, but there are a few, so you should just get in the habit of making sure you discard the old Goal whenever a new one is played.
Q: Does the Action Bring Out Your Dead allow a player to trash New Rule cards from the center of the table?
or only Keeper and Creeper cards from in front of the player?
A: Bring Out Your Dead specifies that players may discard any cards from their hand or from the table in front of them. This is meant to signify only those cards a given player has control over. New Rule cards are not on the table in front of any one player – they are communal, so one player cannot decide to discard them using this action. (Neither may they discard Goals, for the same reason.)
Also note that it’s not only cards in play in front of the player, one can also choose to discard cards from one’s hand at the same time.
Q: Can someone with the Holographic Projector win if the two Keepers needed are owned by other players?
A: No, the Hologram can only be one Keeper at a time. It’s already a very powerful card – if it could be any TWO Keepers at once, it would be ridiculously overpowered. Now, it is possible, when combining certain Star Trek Fluxxen, for there to be TWO Hologram analogues in the game (Holodeck/Holosuite.) So, if a player has two, one of them could imitate one Keeper owned by another player, and the other could imitate a second Keeper owned by another player.
It is possible to win with one Holographic Projector even if you don’t have either of the required cards yourself only if the win conditions include a Creeper or Creepers which are attached to a single Keeper owned by another player. In that case, the Holographic Projector only needs to be one Keeper, but it also mimics the associated Creeper properties. A few examples of Goals for this type of win would include Imperial Destroyer, Evil Computer, Evil Brain Parasites, Robot Uprising, The Power Of Evil, and Malfunctioning Transporter.
See also: Can the Holodeck count as both itself AND someone else’s Keeper…
Q: Can Canceled Plans prevent someone from winning the game? What about That’s Mine?
Player #1 contends that he won the game because the rules say that as soon as a goal is achieved the game is over and no other actions/cards can be played. Player #2 says that no, the Surprise card overrides the general rule and cancels the playing of the goal and therefore the game does not end. Which is true?
A: Yes. If the Canceled Plans card played is played immediately, it cancels the Goal and play continues to the next person. That is the intent of the card.
It works the same way for That’s Mine. If the winning play is a Keeper, That’s Mine can be used to cancel that play, preventing the win.
Again, Surprises are meant to be able to work this way… but you have to be using the correct Surprise for the type of play you’re canceling – and you must play your Surprise in a timely manner: say, within a few seconds of the player playing their card.
For more nuanced suggestions about how to resolve some tweaky timing issues, check
When a player is allowed multiple plays on their turn, are there any guidelines for timing between plays?”
Q: Who wins if player A plays the Martian Zookeeper Goal, with winning conditions in place, and Player B also meets the conditions, but their Humans are hidden in the Abduction Chamber?
To review: the Martian Zookeeper requires a Cow and a male and female Human, but ties are broken by whoever has more total Humans. So if player A is all set to win when they play the Goal, but B also meets the conditions, with more Humans, but they’re hidden in the Abduction Chamber, can player B reveal their Humans and win?
A: Player A wins. The Abduction Chamber can be accessed at any time, but it’s neither instantaneous nor retroactive. I might choose to set my Humans free during another player’s turn, when a change in the Goal or the Rules has altered the situation, but it does take a moment to open the cage and round them up.
In other words, if you’re set to win but you wouldn’t if my Humans were loose, I can’t stop you from winning by releasing my Humans. It’s too late, you’ve already won.
Q: If one player has humans in the Abduction Chamber, can the humans be moved out of the Chamber or put back in as needed to meet any Goal in a quick succession?
For example in the instance where Goals were going to be played in succession during a Play All, can it be assumed that the player with the Abduction Chamber has as much time as they need between Goal plays to either show or cover their Humans as needed to meet the Goals that come up?
A: Yes and no. It is stated on the Abduction Chamber card that a player can reveal Humans from it at any time. Though it does not specify when a player can hide them, we intended for this card to work similarly to others like it: you can only put Humans into the Abduction Chamber on your turn. See Can Humans be moved in and/or out of the Abduction Chamber at any time…
When a series of Goal cards is played in succession, there must always be a check to see if anyone wins with each one. During that check, the player with the Abduction Chamber may choose to reveal their Humans, with the understanding that they cannot be put back in again. Of course, if they’ve been revealed to achieve a win, that point is fairly moot.
We would rule that the player who owns the Abduction Chamber is capable of checking to see its contents without choosing to reveal them, so they would really ONLY let their Humans out if it was to win the game.